Talk:James Puckle

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[edit] That's the ^{[citation needed]}, Jack

First, it's not a machinegun, nor ancestral to 1, it's a revolver rifle, in the fashion of many (much later) types following the Colt (who also made 1); I won't even count the ADEN cannon. Second, "fired square bullets"? Huh? I presume this means "flat nosed". Can somebody who actually knows clarify? Trekphiler 13:13, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yes, square bullets

The Puckle gun, which IS the first machine gun (unless you also consider the Gatling gun to be "not a machinegun nor ancestral to one") absolutely fired square bullets. I've seen reproductions of the original advertisements and a period engraving of the weapon. It's fired with a crank from preloaded cases (just like the original Gatling prior to the introduction of metallic cased rounds and elimination of percussion caps) and is basically just a 150 year older design than the Gatling. It does not have multiple barrels because it doesn't fire fast enough to need them, but it still fires faster than the long arms of the time - something you cannot say about revolver rifles, which were no faster to fire than the pistols of the same period - and it's still a mechanically driven "machine" gun not recoil-driven, gas-driven, or trigger-pull driven like a revolver rifle.

I've never heard before that square bullets were "believed to be more damaging", rather I was told in military history classes 25 years ago that bullets square in cross-section were more accurate than round shot, especially when used with square barrels, and led to the development of twisted polygonal bores which in turn led to rifling. In the early 18th century rifling was still too difficult and expensive for mass-marketed human-portable weapons.

Note also that once upon a time Christians weren't supposed to use crossbows on each other - the weapon being too accurate and powerful - but Richard the Lionheart ignored the Pope's prohibition. One presumes any customer of Puckle's would not have been quizzing pirates about their ethnicity before firing about them, so Puckel's "square bullets for Turks" may just be advertising verbiage to prevent conflict with clergymen.

The "mistakenly" and "citation needed" edits (the page links the original patent, for chrissakes, which shows bullets and chambers as distinctly square) are incorrect. I have removed the "mistakenly" since the existing phrase "sometimes considered to be" is NPOV (and also correct, as 15 minutes in a good library will easily reveal - some authorities consider machine guns to be only those that are driven by exhaust gases, but many other consider the Gatling, Puckle and Milletreuse to be primitive machine guns). -- Charlie